No Mere Terrorist
Real terrorists don't want to kill a lot of people. Rather, they
use limited, but indiscriminate, violence or hijacking to create
noise or fear that draws attention to their cause and
ultimately builds political or diplomatic pressure for a specific
objective.

That's why Osama bin Laden is not a mere terrorist. He has
much larger aspirations. He is a super-empowered angry man
who has all the geopolitical objectives and instincts of a
nation-state. He has employed violence not to grab
headlines but to kill as many Americans as possible to drive
them out of the Islamic world and weaken their society.
That's why the Sept. 11 hijackers never left a list of
demands, as terrorists usually do. Their act was their
demand. Their demand is total victory.

What enabled bin Laden, as a super-empowered angry man,
to challenge a superpower was his ability to invent his own
missile delivery system to rival ours. We have computer-
guided missiles. He had human guided missiles: 19 young,
educated Arab men ready to hijack an airliner and commit
suicide with it against a major target. But always remember
that Sept. 11 could have been worse. One of bin Laden's
human missiles could have carried a nuclear device. The only
reason it didn't happen was because the hijackers couldn't
get one.

Since that is the case, the proper, long-term U.S. strategic
response to Sept. 11 should be twofold: First, we must
understand exactly who these 19 suicide bombers were and
how they were recruited.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/24/opinion/24FRIE.html